IPL or "Hype"PL??

Is it a theatre?
Are we watching a show?
Cricket is the loser...
We have the right to know...

A series of final over matches
A barrage of spilled catches
who are the ones making the hatches??
I dont want cricket in tatters and patches...

The matches leading up to the knock out stage of IPL2 have been nothing short of breathtaking. literally every match has gone to the last over. the final four to make it to the semis contain 2 teams which finished at the bottom of last year's edition. most peoples' minds think in a crooked manner even if something normal is happening. so when treated to situations a la cinema, the loud whispers about match fixing are something expected. i am not going to argue with anyone having such a thought. instead let me take a situation which happened in a recent match and see if there might be any fixing implications in it.... here is the situation. deccan chargers need 21 to win off the last over against knight riders. mashrafe mortaza, who bowled a decent 18th over is handed the ball for the final over. lets assume that knight riders are fixed to lose this match... the only criteria being they take it to the last over and do it. but in following the criteria knight riders over do it and hand deccan a near impossible 21 as target for the final over. mortaza bowls a length ball on the pads and whats more.. its a no ball. so he makes it easier for deccan. still there needs to be someone in the middle who can connect 4 balls out of six. the fact that 2 of them were dislodged outside the boundary was purely due to the immense talent of rohit sharma, of course assisted a little by the wayward mortaza. imagine if rohit was not in the middle... lets say rp singh was in the middle. would he have won the game... even if mortaza bowled the easiest full toss lollies to him. again people can argue that rohit sharma being there in the middle and facing the last over is part and parcel of fixing. does this mean that a whole screenplay is being prepared for every freaking match to take it to the last over?? if indeed this is true then we are all fools and cricket, with its already dwindling popularity in the world will face further controverises from which it might not rise like it did earlier.
but before anyone comes to hasty conclusions i ask them to spare a moment for thought. look at some of the players playing in IPL... Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Jayasuriya, Hayden, Gilchrist, muralitharan... the list goes on. these are people who have given their lives for cricket. cricket is in their blood. will they have the heart to carry out such shameless stunts after literally sacrifing their lives under the same sun in the same atmosphere for the same reason... winning. there are certain things which are beyond fixing... there are certain people who are above fixing (Gilly showed us today that certain situations can be affixed without a prefix.) whatever it is that is happening might still be a coincidence. i sincerely pray that it is... being an indian and a cricket fan... such news can be equal to a death blow. fingers crossed!!!

Life @ Sastra

Advertising is the most important factor in business. i learnt this just before i joined sastra. yeah... i got sucked in by the glittering prospectus which portrayed sastra as THE happening place. the campus pictures were simply breathtaking and the infrastructure, facility information etc. given in the prospectus were a lure to anybody seeing it. well... its been four years since i came here and i have now learnt how much of truth there is in the prospectus. simply put... seeing is not believing... its getting fooled..
first year was more like school. after 2 months i started wondering, what did people say about college life?? fun, independence, no barriers for enjoyment etc etc. i hadnt experienced any of it till then. it was worse than school. has anyone heard of a college which levies a fine on you for going home to be with your parents?? well... it happens here, thats sastra for you. attend classes... score marks in cycle tests... mug... mug... mug. then things started to ease out once i made more friends... my friend circle from school was already here so there was no dearth of known people. it was just that once i widened this circle college became a more comfortable punishment.
Second semester followed by the whole of second year were the most fun. intramural cultural events, cricket tournaments and what not!! the fun was marred by an internal conflict between our friends. 2 of them left our group... or they may say we left them, but the end result was the same. i started enjoying the fun filled ethos of hostel life during my second year only. watching cricket matches in the crowded TV room and shouting your lungs out for india!!! there cannot be a better feeling than that especially if you are a cricket fan. even exams turned out to be fun once we discovered the concept of group studies... night outs...
Third year was no different from second.. but the fun element got reduced once each and everyone got their own systems to hostel. rather it can be said that the mode of fun changed from chatting in groups late night, playing dokku cricket, cards etc. to seeing movies on the system or playing games in it. i personally thought that we became more aloof with one another because of system.
fourth year was a scramble... first half i spent in germany undergoing a 4 month internship. total freedom, fun and exposure to a different culture. it was indeed a learning curve. the second half has been a race against time... 7th sem exams... project... review... whew!!! now the nostalgia is slowly creeping in. life at sastra is almost over. having said so much about this place... i will still be missing it... but only because of the memories i shared here with my friends... treasures to be cherished forever and ever!!!

about me

oh.. yet another so called blogger wasting his and others' time with useless info about himself. yes, very true but i will still do it. life has taught me many things and one of the important ones is the necessity to express yourself, so where else to do it than a blog!! Ok, to get started... i am Jagannath a Final year engineering student pursuing mehanical in Sastra University, tanjore. i am basically a very jovial person who likes to crack jokes , be happy blah blah blah... cut the crap you say... ok ok. Like our very own indian author chetan bhagat, i have also committed 3 mistakes in my life till now (though he committed his fourth by publishing his mistakes!!!). first was to take up science group during my 12th std. second was to decide to pursue engineering after 12th. and the final one was to join sastra university. oh well... after coming here and seeing so many other people who have committed the same mistakes i was a little emboldened and ever since have managed to live with my mistakes. there are certain people who offer you advice during a career deciding juncture in your life... out of them very few are really helpful in the long run. one such advice came from my cousin who told that whatever be the institute in which you pursue your degree, if you are the cream in it then you can come up in life. i dont know if i have come up in life or will come up but that piece of advice was indeed a spirit lifter.
everyone talks about having goals set for themselves and dreams that they have for their future, but frankly i dont have any goals and have never had them all my life. my life has been like an unmanned boat which goes along the ebbs and flows of the stream... so far it hasnt toppled.
there are only three people in this world who can make me happy in a flash of a second (of course not counting parents, family etc..). Sachin Tendulkar, A R Rahman and SuperStar Rajinikanth. all my childhood i grew up along with tendulkar's career... it was like watching something out of this world... his batting. there were times when sachin hindered with my studies, made me fight with my parents, friends etc. its been 15 years of watching the tendulkar magic unravel and i am dreading the day he will hang up his boots... the cricket fan in me will retire the same day i guess.
i always think of myself as rational and sane... but when it comes to Rajinikanth... well what can you say!! is it rational to believe that one man can simply change people's lives with his strength, style, panache and charisma?? well... a 100 crore people believe so and i am one of them. there is no proper explanation to this except for the fact that i lose myself when i see him on the screen... thalaivar enikkume enakku thalaivar dhaan!!
music heals... i firmly belive in this. A R Rahman was the person who made me believe in it. to describe his work in one word... heavenly!!! people might argue that ilayaraaja, msv and people before that were far better... well i dont know about that too much because i grew up with rahman's music filling my world, enlivening my sad times, catlysing my happy ones and supporting me through out my endeavours.
well i have said enough about myself i guess...